Power Outage Hits Downtown Rochester

Rochester, MN (KROC AM News) - A section of downtown Rochester was hit by a power outage just before 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Nearly 600 RPU customers were affected by the outage in an area along the west side of Broadway between the Soldiers Field Park area on the south and north 2nd St on the north, extending west to 5th Ave SW.

Service was fully restored around 10:30 a.m.

According to the Rochester Fire Dept, the outage was caused by the failure of an electric component in a manhole vault at West Center St and 1st Ave NE, which led to a small fire. The safety mechanism shut off power and crews had to reconfigure the system.

Several major intersections lost their traffic control lights during the outage, including the busy 2nd St SW corridor.